In a wireless network, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) allows for computing functions to be located near the radio edge of the network. This allows for a reduction in the latency of communications between a requesting User Equipment (UE) and the computing function. Reducing latency is important in many real-time computing applications including either computing, or assisting in the computation of, a trajectory for a mobile device, including user equipment (UE), autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as computing or assisting in the computation of control information for connected devices including robots, tele-robots, and similar computing devices. In some embodiments, MEC is used by UEs to offload computations, data handling, or other computing task to more robust, or better connected, computing functions within the network. MEC is typically useful in scenarios including computationally intensive tasks and data intensive tasks.
The UE can connect to the network to access a MEC resource in order to communicate with a network function (NF), physical NF (non-virtualized) or virtualized NF, located at a network node located near the edge of the network (“edge NF”). The edge NF can include, an edge application function which may be located within a cloudlet, a cloud server, a database, a datastore, or a combination of the above. The network node that supports a MEC resource may be referred to as a mobile edge computing node (MEC-N).
Where the UE is both supported by a mobile network, and is not fixed in location (e.g. a connected vehicle, or a UAV), the MEC-N typically includes functionality to maintain a communication channel with the UE that has the similar characteristics to those initially configured. By placing the network function near the radio edge, a low latency can be achieved, but as the UE moves through the network, the network function also has to move so that it can maintain a similar topological distance from the UE and keep the communications latency sufficiently low. This requires network support for moving the function through the network. This may be achieved through using a plurality of network functions in different locations in the network. As the UE moves through the network, the NF associated with the UE is changed to the next NF in the network along the UE's path. The NF can be modelled by a set of state information characterizing the NF. By moving the state information associated with the NF to a second NF, the network can have the second NF effectively pick up where the original NF left off. This allows the NF serving the UE to effectively move through the network with the UE. In embodiments where the NF is virtualized in the network, the network may undertake the instantiation and configuration of virtualized NFs (VNFs) along a projected path of the UE. The state of the previous VNF can be moved to an instantiated and configured VNF at the time that the VNF is activated. Where NFs are not virtual, they can be configured but assigned an inactive mode until, like in the virtualized case, the UE is within a defined distance, at which point they can be set to an active mode and provided the state information
In some cases, such as when the UE trajectory is known, the NF serving the UE can be migrated to be topologically located adjacent to, or even co-located with, a next anticipated AP.
In cases where the UE trajectory is uncertain however, the UE path is unpredictable. The trajectory may be uncertain, for instance, when the UE has motion that is autonomous (or semi-autonomous) from the network and MEC. In these cases, the network entities have a lower certainty in predicting a suitable next location for the NF.
Therefore, there is a need for a MEC solution that is robust, and is not subject to one or more limitations of the prior art.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.